Hi, after roughly 8+ years its finally time for an upgrade for a myriad of reasons
My current system specs are: i7 5280k / 16Go of somewhat slow DDR4 / GTX 980.

I wanna switch to a 1440p240Hz (even though 240hz has poor availability for the monitors I'm targeting - more on that below) and I'll be using the new build for both for gaming and productivity applications (split should be roughly 75-80% gaming /20-25% productivity). Since video editing should be the most demanding productivity task I'll be doing, I don't think it warrants particularly optimizing the build for it. Given all that, I'm thinking:

- 7800X3D, and planning to reuse a NH-D15 I have in another build
- RX 6950XT (probably the XFX Speedster merc319, cheapest in France and looks solid)
- 32Go DDR5 6000 36-36-36-96, which is looking like the new gold standard for DDR5
- Mobo: Don't need fancy features, just a decent amount of USB ports at the back, enough lanes to max out the GPU and space for an NVME, 1-2 Sata SDDs and an HDD at most + Front IO (incl. 1 USB-C) + 2.5G net (a plus, not a must). Idk how realistic it is to find something with decent power delivery for under 250€ with those criteria but any board recommendations or general advice would help.
- PSU: with everything and depending on the calculator, I get around 660-680W of consumption. I'll most likely be lightly overclocking both CPU and GPU, so I'm guessing 700W should do it. I only have experience with EVGA and Seasonic and both have been great but open to suggestions for this too.
+ Storage
+ Some case that'll fit all that, probably the Fractal Design Meshify 2 Compact or something similar

For monitors, I've been tracking prices of 27", 1440p, 240 Hz, IPS ones for the following models:
- Gigabyte M27Q-X: super overpriced and poor availability in France
- MSI MAG274QRX: same issue
- Iiyama GB2790QSU-B1: decently priced but has almost no trustable reviews online
I don't know of any other options rn and I wanna stay in the 450-470 range as much as possible

I'm mostly looking for feedback/criticism if some of the choices don't make sense + advice on some of the parts I know less about

Thks in advance!

at this point you arent necessarily looking for a specific monitor, you are looking to fit a monitor into your budget and it being available in France at the same time
if you could get it out of america for 400$(350 on bestbuy) the HP Omen 27qs seems like a no brainer for the price but thats not how the cookie crumbles so lets see

#3931
That all sounds very reasonable.
2.5G is pretty much standard on AM5 mobos, so you shouldn't have any trouble getting that.
Same with 2x SATA and an M.2 NVMe slot.
I'm not sure what you consider a decent amount of USB ports at the back, shouldn't be a problem either though.
Front IO depends on the case. If the case doesn't have a USB-C port at the front, there's nothing the mobo can do. Just pay attention whether it's USB 3.1/3.2 or 3.0. 3.x uses the 20-pin Key-A connector, 3.0 uses a very different, incompatible 19-pin. Most mobos only have one or the other, with the newer ones usually having Key-A, like the Meshify 2 needs.
Enough PCIe lanes are a given, though if you want PCIe 5.0 you'll need a B650E or X670E mobo. There are no GPUs with PCIe 5.0 yet though, so for now it won't actually do anything.

Do not buy PSUs by brand. Two reasons:
1. The high-end platforms of one manufacturer generally being good does not mean all of them are good, and their budget platforms might always suck. They're just not going to send out review samples for those.
2. Brand != manufacturer. EVGA neither builds nor designs PSUs, they just slap a new label on something they bought from the usual suspects in China or Taiwan. Seasonic is an actual manufacturer but for some reason has started outsourcing the production of their low-end units and generally started using much worse designs for them. E.g. the S12III is worse and more expensive than the much older S12II.

So always check reviews for PSUs. And not the low effort "it's a PSU and it works", you'll want one of those where it's 20 pages of measurements that you don't understand. Then you simply skip to the conclusion where they'll tell you what that actually means, whether the PSU is actually worth the price, great, got some minor flaws that shouldn't affect you, or is actually missing important stuff like overcurrent protection, acting up under high load etc.

#3931
setsul will correct me if im wrong but https://cultists.network/140/psu-tier-list/ is a good resource for picking a psu

Well, I wouldn't pick solely based on that list, because it's nowhere near granular enough to tell which PSU is better, but it can at least tell you which PSU not to get, which is nice to narrow things down.

The tiers are not ideal in my opinion because they roughly map as follows:
F: Fire hazard.
E: Trash
D: Still trash, also pretty much no units there so why bother differentiating?
C: Works, but worse performing half I'd never buy, while those going beyond the minimum requirements are actually good budget PSUs.
B: Barely more stringent performance requirements than C, but excludes all older/simpler designs on principle.
A: Indirect minimum efficiency (and price) requirement, with still very lax performance requirements.

The end result is that e.g. an FSP Hydro G Pro (80+ Gold, ~150€ for 1000W) that I'd never buy because it's so thoroughly mediocre to underwhelming at that price and the EVGA T2 / Super Flower Titanium (80+ Titanium, ~250€ for 1000W), which I'd absolutely recommend if it makes sense in proportion to the budget, end up in the exact same tier.

Hello, for some reason, 2 out of the 4 RAM slots in my previous mobo died, so I got a new one (same model - B450M-A II).

However, it shortly happened again to this mobo too, and I have been trying to find out what component did this. One or two of the RAM modules I tried inserting are faulty, so I think (...and hope) that the RAM slots were destroyed by faulty RAMs inserted into them. (There is an 80% chance that I get PAGE FAULT IN NONPAGED AREA BSoD on boot so I keep my PC on sleep instead of shutting down...)

Mostly, I'm wondering if it is at all possible that it's a problem with my PSU or CPU, or the RAM slots got destroyed by the faulty RAM modules.

Found a lot of conflicting opinions online.
I'm posting my specs below.

Mobo: ASUSTeK PRIME B450M-A II
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650
PSU: Be Quiet System Power 9 500W
RAM: https://www.amazon.com/Patriot-Signature-Line-3200MHz-Single/dp/B0887VLQPB

Now, just to make sure:
You're not on Windows Vista or 7 and you have actually tested the RAM?

I'm on Windows 10, my only indicator that the RAM module is faulty is by placing it in a RAM slot where another RAM module (exactly same model) was placed before and was working correctly.

I don't mind replacing my mobo or CPU, I just don't want to upgrade one (or both) component and have the same issues again.

What exactly did you do?
I mean if you just swapped slot how do you know which module was working correctly? Did you test them one by one?

Either way, you'll probably want to run memtest86+. https://www.memtest.org/
You'll need an empty USB Flash Drive, or CD ROM if you're old school, or do it via network boot if you want to be really weird.
That takes windows out of the equation and by switching the modules around you'll be able to tell if it's always the same module throwing errors, the same slot, or random.

#3931

Thks a lot for the comments on my first message, I've build the following list on PC part picker: https://fr.pcpartpicker.com/list/DzLXgb
And I have a couple questions left before going out to buy the parts.

1/ Regarding the mobo (https://fr.msi.com/Motherboard/MAG-B650-TOMAHAWK-WIFI/Specification)
- Its among the cheapest AM5 boards in France with the basic features I want and it should be enough to get the most out of the CPU considering I will only moderately OC it
- As you said Setsul I checked for the front pannel connector and seems like it works out with the cases I've been considering. But just to make sure, it this (https://imgur.com/a/ryf3orF) what you were talking about ?
- Idc about PCIE5 since 4 is enough to get the most out of past & current-gen GPUs + I don't need PCIE5 speeds for storage either
- I've never had a mobo with a BIOS that doesnt support the CPU out of the box, but from what I understand I should be able to flash it by myself with an USB thanks to the Flash BIOS Button (?)
- Not sure how clearing CMOS works when there's no dedicated button

2/ For the PSU (https://www.amazon.fr/Seasonic-SSR-750FX-Focus-Gx-750/dp/B077J9G9CH) which I couldnt add to the PCPP list for some reason
- Has good reviews and is fairly priced in France

I've done the basic compatibility / clearance checks but feel free to point out if I've missed something. Just looking for feedbacks / second opinion basically

-Yeah, mobo is fine.
-It got both a USB 3.1 (1x USB-C) and a USB 3.0 (2x USB-A) header, exactly what the case supports.
-Yep, PCIe 5.0 isn't going to do anything for a couple of years yet.
-Yes, you can update the BIOS on that mobo by plugging in a USB flash drive with the new version in the correct port and pressing that button.
-Why would you need a button to clear CMOS? The old school reset is simply removing the battery. Not that you should ever need to do that.

PSU is good.

I don't like the SSD, it's just not good. There are some TLC versions of it that don't suck as badly, but it's luck of the draw which one you'll get, and purely because they're pulling the two versions under the same name bullshit, with the better ones being sent out as review samples, I'd never buy one.
The Crucial P3 is a bit better if you want to stay in that price range. Yes, it's PCIe 3.0, but at 4x that maxes out around 4000 MB/s and neither of them actually reaches that, with the P3 actually being faster. It's still QLC, but that's what you get at that price.
Samsung 970 Evo Plus or WD Blue SN570 or WD Black SN770 would be some of the usual suspects if you're willing to spend a bit more for TLC.

Thanks Setsul

Clearing CMOS was how I learned to manage a successful boot after an over aggressive OC that manages to boot but shuts down the PC during stress testing. At any rate it's super situational and once I got it tuned like I want I agree that I basically won't ever need that.
Good points for the SSD thanks, I hadnt paid attention to memory types

Hi Setsul guys,

I have an i5 2500k (never overclocked) with 32gb (salvaged) ddr3 and a gtx 1060.
Besides TF2 I sometimes play more recent titles like hitman, dying light, or cyberpunk. I use 1080p.
I aim at 100fps in ..fps, and 60 for the rest.
Even TF2 is not always stable at 120+fps when the browser runs on the second screen.
I have no plans to bin the whole PC and I'm looking at upgrades to keep gaming on w10 for another 3-5 years.

The options I think I have:
- overclock without increasing voltage (i have a decent aircooler)
- upgrade to i7 3770k/2600k
- upgrade to i7 3770k/2600k then overclock those

I have a hard time finding recent reliable benchmarks of those CPUs especially in recent games that use more threads. I don't feel I can trust gpucheck/cpu monkey types of benchmarks and would be grateful to receive some advice.

Then depending on how that goes I may later on buy a more recent gpu like a 3060 or rx 7600, no real idea yet and open to advice.

cheers

I mean you could also overclock with increased voltage?

Anyway, not sure which Hitman, but just looking at Cyberpunk 2077 benchmarks it's not happening.
https://www.pcgameshardware.de/Cyberpunk-2077-Spiel-20697/Specials/Cyberpunk-v152-Benchmark-Review-Raytracing-1398562/3/
3060 getting 63.7 fps average on 1080p Ultra (rasterizing), which is fine, 3770K on 720p max settings gets 40.5 fps. I don't think that's going to work, even with overclocking.
I checked https://www.tomshardware.com/news/cyberpunk-2077-cpu-scaling-benchmarks
and there's basically no difference from 1080p Ultra to 1080p Medium if you're cpu-limited.
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/7M7qn9U9K3nXn7qJYnQMsL.png
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/gQqHFpb6dmaqZW4vgMGDxC.png

I don't think there's any way you're going to get 60 fps in new games with a 15 year old CPU. It's clearly not working with a 12 year old CPU now, and the 3770K is just one year more recent and not nearly enough of an upgrade to buy you another 5 years.

#3944

The last time i checked overclocking I thought increased voltage reduced lifespan of the chip. Not sure how much I gain between stock voltage oc and vcore oc to figure out if it's worth it.

Sorry. I have these 2 https://store.steampowered.com/app/236870/HITMAN/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/863550/HITMAN_2/

ok. Is this game the most demanding of the last couple of years on the CPU? I could live without it if that's an outlier like supreme commander once was.

The way I read it (pls correct me):

• Cyberpunk seems to be one of the if not the hardest title on cpu at the moment
  
• i7 3770k is 20% slower than i3 9100 which would translate to ~40FPS in cyberpunk(?), not great but not unplayable either if that's only this game that demands this much.

You are just going to hit a brick wall with or without an upgrade to a 3770k. Cyberpunk can do better than 4c8t. DDR4 if done right is 3 times the bandwidth of your "salvaged" DDR3 which I assume is just a bunch of mixed 1333&1600 kits that you have running at 1333, (unless you happen to have the god tier 2133/2400MHz sticks but lets face it, you dont). AAA games do make use of the high memory bandwidth thanks to the RAM speeds and VRAM speeds improving greatly since the Sandy Bridge came out and the IPC being able to finally properly make use of all this. These new games are made mostly with current gen consoles in mind, and they use a single memory pool of very high speed &/or bandwidth VRAM.

Even overclocked the lower core count, ancient by today memory bandwidth and IPC performance is just going to make your game feel like shit no matter what you do. In heavier scenes or in any mention of intense traffic you are going to stutter bad. The allegedly 40 fps figure is max or average fps, not the 1% or 0.1% lows. Your newly yet to be bought GPU will see 40-70% usage. You will dip.

Obviously you have said that you dont want to bin this whole PC, but do you really have to? I dont see how a working 2500K+a working mobo(even better if overclockable) and 32 gigs of ram will get you way less than a 100EUR if sold. You could then buy a r5 5500/i3 12100f/13100f, a mobo and 16gb(50eur) or 32gb(80eur if you so must) of DDR4 all for less than 250eur(or 20-40 eur more with the intel because fuck them and their b660/b760 prices). With the 100EUR you would be having from selling 2500K and the rest it would all add up to 150eur give or take which brings you further a decade.

And this isnt just Cyberpunk, this has been happening for at least 2 years now and will only keep happening as they pump out new AAA titles.

anyway this was my 2 cents

If you think your CPU is on its last legs and will die immediately if you dare to increase the voltage even a little bit, then you'll need to buy a new one anyway.
I mean the goal isn't to fry it immediately, but overclocking without increasing the voltage isn't going to get you very far. Maybe not anywhere.
It still wouldn't be enough to solve your problem, so it's a moot point.

No, it's just the only one I bothered to look at benchmarks for.

No. I think Hitman 2 is roughly as bad.
Yes, I did literally tell you that the 3770K gets 40.5 fps average in the benchmark I linked. With 1% lows of 22 fps. I would not want to play like that.

#3947 shit i didnt read straight your sentence about cyberpunk projected fps. my bad.

#3946 fair points that add up to a reasonable price, (more reasonable than spending 60 eur on a 3770k alone lol) thanks. Does ddr4 3200 matter compared to ddr4 2666?

Depends, just make sure you dont get the OEM models like the green PCB no radiators because these are 99% of the time JEDEC specced(CL19 and CL22 for 2666 and 3200mhz respectively) as they are high latency low bandwidth. Considering today they cost the same there is no reason to buy 2666 other than compatibility issues or rare use cases like inability to adjust frequency and just tinkering with timings on H chipset Intel boards. Its essentially the 1333 of DDR4.

RAM in itself is a rabbit hole with people religiously trying to achieve the highest frequency with the lowest timings, paying 2x sometimes 3x for 16gb, but for what youre doing a 3200MHz CL16 kit that is as abundant as sand on this planet is fine. Dont go out paying out 30-40eur more for 1.5ns faster RAM when youre not an overclocker if you can double the capacity for that price. Just ask the German guy for a good mobo and a decent RAM kit available in stores in France because I dont know shit about MOSFET's, VRM's and power delivery on specific motherboards or anything regarding good RAM kits and their subsequent finetuning.

I ask because I may have an opportunity to get 2 kingston kcp426nd8-16 sticks from an old server (this one) for like 30 euro but it's CL19.

How much am I losing by not getting 3200 CL16 sticks?

The latency is in clocks, so 2666 CL19 is very different from 3200 CL19, let alone 3200 CL16.
Basically, 17% lower bandwidth 42.5% higher latency. It's not great.
It's better than not having RAM, and RAM is the easiest part to replace, so for cobbling together an upgrade out of used parts it's ok I guess.

Unless you really need 32GB though, I'd get 16GB of better RAM, then add more later if it turns out to be necessary.

Duly noted. Will sell my used parts then upgrade to a recent cpu , 16gb of 3200, a mobo and a newer nvme disk before thinking about gpu. Thanks again.

Hi,

This build is for a friend who mostly wants to be able to play apex and run cyberpunk in VR. I don't know enough to properly inform him so I thought I'd post here to check. Let me know if there's anything to change. Budget is ~€1400 I think.

CPU - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09VCJ2SHD/ref=ox_sc_act_title_6?smid=A1IUZRVRQUH0V6&psc=1

GPU - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B096Y2NLV4/ref=ox_sc_act_title_8?smid=A2OAJ7377F756P&psc=1

32gb ram - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B081374T3G/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A2AEWZ68B7P4J7&psc=1

SSD - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kingston-NVMe-PCIe-2000G-SNV2S/dp/B0BDTC589G/ref=sr_1_4?crid=2NNBJF0WZ2BA9&keywords=Kingston+NV2+NVMe+PCIe+4.0+SSD&qid=1688458438&s=computers&sprefix=kingston+nv2+nvme+pcie+4.0+ssd%2Ccomputers%2C47&sr=1-4

Asus mobo - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B089HGSZ1J/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=A17AS5ETPMZ9A1&psc=1

Power Supply - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08NHVW71G/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?smid=A2OAJ7377F756P&psc=1

CPU cooler- https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B087VM7HT2/ref=ewc_pr_img_5?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&psc=1

Case - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08C7BGV3D/ref=ox_sc_act_title_4?smid=A2OAJ7377F756P&psc=1

Hi,
I'm looking to build a pc from scratch and it will be a first time for me.

The main goal is for it to be able to run tf2 with good fps to fully use the 240hz monitor that i already have AND to be able to read, watch, edit and render heavy 4K photos and videos at a good speed (which my old 2013 pre-build computer was unsurprisingly not able to do after 8 years of service). Other than that i would like to be able to also run csgo/gta 5 decently those are the only other games that i play from time to time.

I'm looking to buy the parts of the computer this month or the next one.

Budget could be around 1,5/2k but it's highly flexible i dont mind putting more if it makes a huge difference or less if it's not going to change much for my need.

Additionnal to that, i'm looking to have high internal storage capacity around 4To to store all the photos/videos files.

As i said, it's a first time and i dont know too much about computer so any advice if i'm delusional about something or build idea is high appreciated. Tell me if i forgot something or if you have questions.

Thanks in advance

the way I see it you have 3 choices

1. stay below 1.5K and just have a nice 2022 mid range pc from scratch on AM5 platform or like a 12600k with the GPU being a 3060/4060. its going to be fluid and snappy however, will take its time while rendering anything large
   
2. be about 2K and squeeze in a nice little 3080(12gb)/3080ti/4070(maybe even ti) if you will really benefit from GPU acceleration in your software and have a nice little bonus of being able to considerably crank up graphics settings in single player for the next 2-4 years even though you never mentioned those games once
   
3. go balls deep 2.2-2.5K and have a crazy rendering rig that you can game with on the side

in which ever case you are going to need this https://www.dealabs.com/groupe/cartes-graphiques because high end GPU prices are still bonkers
i just really dont know how well recent AMD card accelerate editing software

the part I am still trying to figure out is how serious you are about the whole editing thing because it seems to me you are on a 1080p 8bit screen whereas ideally you'd have a 4K monitor with 99% DCI-P3/Adobe RGB coverage and I dont think a 240hz panel older than 2021 has even half decent gamma coverage

either way I would suggest you get 32Gb of RAM, 12Gb of VRAM and ideally at least 8 Cores, these wont do you any good in tf2 but if youre serious about your video and photo editing i would look at R7 7700/i5 13600k at the very least

figure out which of the 3 choices suits you best and ask the german guy for parts

Thanks for your reply and the GPU link deals i thought it was getting easier to get them but didnt follow anything about it the past 2 years so it's good to know

To be more precise about the editing stuff, i'm taking a lot of 4K photos/videos and regularly open/read them and my last old pc was struggling to even do that. I dont edit/render really often as it's not my job but just a hobby so it doesnt need to be really fast just to do it properly from times to times.

For the screen, you are absolutely right it was weird on my side. i dont remember which monitor i got because i didnt use it for a long time and dont have it now but i think it was one of the first cheap one that went out from iiyama way before 2021 so not good for gamma at all. I was less into photos/video at the time and more into tf2 (even tho my pc couldnt run tf2 at 240hz but i thought at the time that i would buy a new pc soon after). I was already recording 4K 10 bit knowing that i couldnt see the full result of it at the time but thinking of the long term. I'm planning on a buying a good quality 4k monitor in the future for that.

Thanks for the parts advice i think option 1/2 is more likely based on that. Will not play any single game but could go for option 2 if i see a good opportunity.

Poggers

#3954
jnki pretty much got it.
Though you could mix 1 and 2, be more conservative with the GPU since it's the easiest and most likely to be replaced in a couple of years, still get a fairly beefy CPU, but have enough money left over for a good monitor.
CS:GO / CS 2 and GTA 5 also don't need that good of a GPU, so it mostly depends on how much makes sense for hardware acceleration.
For the CPU, Intel's E-cores might help a lot, or they might not, best to check that. If they do help, Intel's probably the better choice now, though on the other hand AMD's socket AM5 is going to stick around for quite a few years, so unlike with Intel, you could actually replace the CPU with something better later.
For storage, you could either go with one big SSD, fairly simple, or get a smaller, possibly faster one (1 TB or so) and then an HDD however large you want it. Maybe two, for mirroring. The latter is more work, you'd still want to render onto the SSD to not get slowed down by the HDD, and then move it to the HDD when you're done. The advantage is that high capacity HDDs are cheaper and no one I know who does any rendering or editing has ever been content with how much storage they got. The mirroring wouldn't be a backup, doesn't protect you from accidental deletion, malware, hardware failure other than the HDD, but it does protect you against the extremely annoying situation of the HDD dying and taking last week's work with it and then you need a new HDD first because you don't have the space and then you need to put it into the case and then you need to restore stuff from backup and whoops 2 days are gone and you're way behind schedule.

Anyway, the usual questions:
1. Overclocking yes/no?
2. Which programs are you going to use?
3. Anything special you want/need? Sound dampening for the case, smaller form factor, space for more PCIe cards, e.g. a soundcard, SD card reader on the front panel?

Ok thank you for the advice about the GPU and CPU. It's unlikely that my needs are going to change in the next couple of years so i'm probably not going to upgrade the pc in short/mid term.
For the CPU, i would probably play it safe and go for an AMD in this case
For storage, i would go for the small SSD of 1to and and one higher capacity HDD on the side. I was already doing that on my previous pc and i also have a good (but slow) cloud capacity where i store the stuff i really dont want to lose and i upload very often because of previous bad experince with data loss. The editing/rendering is really a hobby and isnt so important if not too fast. It was mostly that my previous pc was unable or really slow to open large files which was frustrating.

1. overclocking no
2. Games i said previously. Excel/Word/Powerpoint for work. Using lightroom/Premiere pro for editing. Lawena for tf2. Spotify for music.
3. Sound dampering not necessary for the case, normal size case with the possibily to add one thing or 2 like extra HDD and a soundcard , SD card reader for front panel yes absolutely thanks for thinking of that. Cant think of anything else for now.

Thanks a lot for your help

Ok, so from what I'm seeing in Lightroom/Premiere Pro benchmarks, an i5-13600 probably would be faster than a 7700(X) and it's cheaper.
For 13700 vs 7900X it swings back in AMD's favour, and 13900 vs 7950X Intel wins again.
If you wanted/need a K CPU and a Z mobo for overclocking it would be different, but since you don't and are not planning to replace the CPU, it would actually work fairly well for you, so I thought I should mention it.
For the GPU, something in the 4060 to 4060 Ti range should be enough. Those are about the same performance in games as a 3060 Ti or 3070, but for hardware editing the older ones actually seem to do a bit better. It makes sense, the older ones need more hardware (and power) to achieve the same in games, but for pure number crunching, having more hardware is beneficial.
For the mobo and case, I'd got with µATX, which sounds a lot smaller than it is. You don't need the 7 PCIe slots full ATX offers, nor a full-height case where you can stack 10 HDDs on top of each other. 4 PCIe slots are enough for a triple slot GPU and a sound card, and 2 HDD slots are mostly standard still for µATX, I think.
I didn't ask, but do you need a CD/DVD/Blu-Ray drive? Just so we know how many external slots the case needs. A 3.5" would be enough for a card reader, but those are becoming rarer, and most cases that come with an external slot only got a single 5.25", which would be enough if you want an ODD and a card reader. Not that there aren't those with 5.25" + 3.5" (very rare) or simply 2x5.25", it simply limits your choice of cases a bit. And you obviously don't want to find out only during building the pc that you can't fit both ODD and card reader.